Stuart Gordon Gives L.A. Audiences a ‘Taste’ of Onstage Gore

“There will be blood,” promises director Stuart Gordon of “Taste,” the stage play now running through May 17 at L.A.’s Sacred Fools Theater.

That red stuff probably isn’t much of a surprise, given that Gordon was one of the creators of gory 1985 pic “Re-Animator” and also directed the musical version that played the New York Musical Theater Festival a couple of seasons ago.

“Taste,” in fact, has two kinds of blood: washable and edible. “That’s because the play is also a cooking show,” Gordon notes. “But not one you’d see on the Food Network.”

The cuisine in question is human flesh in Benjamin Brand’s tale of a man who puts up an online ad for someone he can kill, cook and eat. Based on a true story, “Taste” has a far more serious tone than something like “Re-Animator,” and auds (18 and up only, thank you) are subjected to the grim sight of the graphic, onstage dismemberment of one man’s, uh, member.

In achieving the big effect, Gordon and his team of movie-alum goremasters — Tony Dublin (“Re-Animator”) and Gabe Bartalos (“Frankenhooker”) — couldn’t cheat with film edits and the fixed viewpoint of the camera. “There’s something even more disturbing about seeing it happen live in front of you,” Gordon says. “Theater separates the men from the boys.”